Build a typing trainer with lessons, speed and accuracy tracking
A typing trainer has to do three things well: give the right text to practise, measure speed and accuracy honestly, and show progress over weeks. Anticode can build one with lessons, timed tests on your own texts and a history kept in the learner's browser, so a class, a team or one person can practise without accounts.
How speed and accuracy are measured
Typing speed is conventionally counted in words per minute where a "word" is five characters, including spaces and punctuation. That stops a test full of short words looking faster than one full of long ones. The details are where trainers differ, so decide which you want:
- Gross WPM
- All characters typed, divided by five, divided by minutes. Flatters careless typists.
- Net WPM
- Only correctly typed characters count, or gross WPM minus a penalty per uncorrected error. The fairer headline number.
- Accuracy
- Correct keystrokes as a percentage of all keystrokes, including ones later deleted. Counting only the final text hides how many corrections were needed.
- Consistency
- How steady speed is across the test, from per-second samples. Useful for advanced learners.
Show net WPM and accuracy together on the results screen, and teach learners that accuracy comes first: speed built on errors has to be unlearned.
Lessons that build up
- Home row: ASDF and JKL; with the index-finger bumps, in short letter groups and then real words using only those keys.
- Top and bottom rows, one or two new keys per lesson, mixed with keys already learned.
- Capitals and punctuation, using the Shift key on the opposite hand.
- Numbers and symbols, for learners who need them for work or code.
- Real text: sentences, then paragraphs, then texts the learner will actually type.
An on-screen keyboard that highlights the next key, and the finger to use, helps beginners keep their eyes off their hands. Adaptive practice is a step further: track which keys are slowest or most often wrong and generate drills that use them more.
Your own practice texts
Generic practice texts are dull. Texts from the learner's real work or interests keep them going: medical terms for a clinic's receptionists, code snippets for a programming class, song lyrics they've written themselves, passages from a set book. Paste the texts into the request, or ask for a screen where learners paste their own. Whatever is pasted there saves in their browser for later sessions. For a class, a fixed set written into the app means everyone practises the same passages.
Describing it to Anticode
A request might read: "A typing practice app for a Year 7 computing class: 12 lessons from home row to full keyboard, each with drills then a short passage, an on-screen keyboard showing the next key, a one-minute and three-minute test using these five passages, results as net WPM and accuracy, and a progress chart of the last 20 tests. Friendly but not childish." The Architect may ask whether tests should stop on errors or let learners carry on.
The model writes it as one HTML document. Two practical points it handles: keystrokes only reach the app after the learner has clicked or tapped into it, so it opens on a start screen with a clear start button; and the text being typed is shown with the current character highlighted and mistakes marked as they happen. The progress chart is drawn in code.
Progress without accounts
Every test result saves in local storage on the learner's device: date, lesson, net WPM, accuracy and the keys they missed most. That's enough for personal progress charts and for adaptive drills. It doesn't follow the learner to another computer, which matters in schools where pupils use whichever machine is free; an Export button that saves results as a file, and an Import on the next machine, is the workaround.
Limits
- No class leaderboard or teacher view. Results stay on each device.
- Physical keyboards only, really. It works on a phone, but touch typing is a skill for real keyboards; a phone test measures something else.
- Keyboard layouts. Say if learners use AZERTY, QWERTZ or another layout so the on-screen keyboard and the lessons match.
- No speech dictation or AI coaching inside the app.
For timed recall of facts rather than keystrokes, see the practice test maker. The coding practice app covers code exercises, and an educational game can wrap typing drills in a story for younger pupils.
Questions people ask
Can I turn typing practice into a game?
Yes. Falling words to type before they land, or a race against your own best time, are common formats. Describe the game and the lessons it should cover.
What's a good typing speed?
It depends on the job. Rather than a target number, track whether net speed rises while accuracy stays high.
Can learners practise in another language?
Yes, if you supply practice texts in that language and name the keyboard layout. The builder itself is in English.